There is increasing interest in employing one network to support video, voice and data traffic. Currently, the video, voice and data networks are distinct since each addresses differing latency and bandwidth requirements. The challenge lies in providing within the same network the ability to address potentially conflicting latency and throughput needs of diverse applications. Some existing systems use multiple radio backhaul to provide both good throughput and latency without degradation over many hops or relays. Such systems sometimes use different non-interfering radio channels as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 labeled 104 to 108. This configuration, however, complicates mobile extensions because a mobile mesh node (FIG. 3, label 301) needs to sample multiple RF channels to determine the best parent mesh node to connect to.
FIG. 3 shows two potential parent nodes P2 303 and P3 304. Mobile node 301 has a current connection to the downlink of P1 302. The downlink P2 and P3 are on different channels to avoid RF interference. Mobile node 301 must sample downlink channels of both P2 303 and P3 304 to measure throughput and decide whether to switch from its current parent node.
Software extensions to the multi-radio backhaul (shown in FIGS. 1, 2) enable mesh nodes to be mobile. A technique is described whereby mobile units scan the environment to locate the best parent node to connect to even though all mesh nodes are operating on different channels. The system performs the following:                1. Scanning to discover all parent mesh nodes in the vicinity.        2. Place list of potential parent nodes in a to-be-sampled list        3. Receive a token from current parent to commence sampling (packets buffered)        4. Sample downlink-uplink connectivity with a selection from sample list        5. Return to normal operation (no more buffering)        6. Continue in this mode till next sampling token is received from parent        7. Repeat with another parent from sample list        8. Repeat steps above till multiple samples have been got        9. Make a decision to stay or switch parents based on throughput, signal strength et al.        